-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Nintendo of Japan apologizes for not telling customers that TMS #FE Encore is based on altered Western version of the original, offering full refunds
- Thread starter vestan
- Start date
That's what the "Women criticize sexualized designs in games" thread is for.
I wish they got a lot more shit for doing that in any market. Aging up the characters is a pretty messed up bandaid if they're still children in the source. But seeing the amount of people losing their absolute shit at changes made to games like these, I guess we're a far way off from putting enough pressure on the devs to not do this in the first place.
Then why did you say anything? How can anyone believe the words from your mouth when you assert how little you care and yet here you are? If you have secretly been fine with everything from day one then why say AGE IS ARBITRARY several times?!!?!???!!
How can you expect anyone to believe you?! Because I sure as fuck don't!
i wish as much thought was put into xenoblade 2. great game hidden behind far worse garbage character design
there there
Like okay outside of the arguments here it's fine to enjoy this game if the creepy shit isn't why you're there
If you're aware of it and fine with it and get turbomad over some removals, that's when you cross a line
If you're aware of it and fine with it and get turbomad over some removals, that's when you cross a line
Japan has bigger problems than this game having 17 year olds do bikini shoots...because the reason that even happens in the Japanese version of the game is because that shit literally happens in Japan in the real world. It appearing in this game is just a reflection of the actual idol industry and a bad aspect of Japanese culture (which you can also find plenty of examples of in western culture as well).
They only aged the characters up one year, if anything that should make you question the "17=child, 18=adult" dichotomy you are rigidly sticking to. Like maybe letting the sex industry exploit 18 year olds is maybe just as bad as letting them exploit 17 year olds...because there isn't a big difference between a 17 and 18 year old in terms of, like, maturity or brain development.
User Warned: Mod whining.
amazingly, this post remains unmoderated. all we can do is clap at this point.
The thing about this type of issue is that I don't think people realize how incredibly normalized this is in Japan. Let's just take One Piece for example which is pretty much the most popular anime/manga in Japan. Rebecca is 16 years old in the manga/anime, and her design is:
For a possibly more mainstream example, you also have Bulma in the original Dragon Ball.
Honestly though, "canonical age is arbitrary" is one of those things that, while technically true, really just serves as a distraction. Creators know this and use it.
First off, since stylized characters aren't going to show age as clearly as real people, it's going to be communicated by context. If it's important that a character's at the age where they're supposed to be high school - whether because it's to relate to a target audience or for a more insidious reason - they're going to show that they're in high school. If they have that sort of context, they can design the characters however they want.
Secondly, since the characters canonical ages don't have to match their apparent age, they can play around with that. Of course, we all know the "1000 year old dragon" meme at this point, but the point is that it's actually something that's done. A character that is drawn as a child, and especially when they're set against other characters that aren't, gets a layer of plausible deniability by being given some other age.
Now these deceptive ages aren't necessarily harmful in and of themselves. For example, I'm a fan of the manga Houshin Engi as well as Sakigake!! Otokojuku. In the former, the main character is drawn so he looks as young as a normal hero you'd find in a shonen manga, but since he's an immortal taoist mystic who is in his nineties or so he talks like an old man. The latter is set in a cram school for high school dropouts, but all of the characters look like grizzled middle-aged men. Neither of these are notably sexual in nature and are really just goofy.
But that's the thing. The intentions are generally extremely transparent. If they want to sexual high school girls, they'll just do that. They introduce characters who are in high school and sexualize them, regardless of what age they look like. If they want to appeal to pedophilia, they'll draw a character who looks like a little kid, generally with accessories that emphasize that they're meant to be seen as kids, and will sexualize them regardless of the excuse.
Going into "their canonical ages don't matter" or "maybe they're just that age because real idols are that age" is besides the point. Just look at the thing.
First off, since stylized characters aren't going to show age as clearly as real people, it's going to be communicated by context. If it's important that a character's at the age where they're supposed to be high school - whether because it's to relate to a target audience or for a more insidious reason - they're going to show that they're in high school. If they have that sort of context, they can design the characters however they want.
Secondly, since the characters canonical ages don't have to match their apparent age, they can play around with that. Of course, we all know the "1000 year old dragon" meme at this point, but the point is that it's actually something that's done. A character that is drawn as a child, and especially when they're set against other characters that aren't, gets a layer of plausible deniability by being given some other age.
Now these deceptive ages aren't necessarily harmful in and of themselves. For example, I'm a fan of the manga Houshin Engi as well as Sakigake!! Otokojuku. In the former, the main character is drawn so he looks as young as a normal hero you'd find in a shonen manga, but since he's an immortal taoist mystic who is in his nineties or so he talks like an old man. The latter is set in a cram school for high school dropouts, but all of the characters look like grizzled middle-aged men. Neither of these are notably sexual in nature and are really just goofy.
But that's the thing. The intentions are generally extremely transparent. If they want to sexual high school girls, they'll just do that. They introduce characters who are in high school and sexualize them, regardless of what age they look like. If they want to appeal to pedophilia, they'll draw a character who looks like a little kid, generally with accessories that emphasize that they're meant to be seen as kids, and will sexualize them regardless of the excuse.
Going into "their canonical ages don't matter" or "maybe they're just that age because real idols are that age" is besides the point. Just look at the thing.
Look this argument started because my point was "Don't call people pedophiles for not liking changes to a game"
Again, I haven't explained myself well here (I'm very tired) but I don't think the difference between "Age: 17" and "Age: 18" is very significant in this specific context. That's ultimately what I'm trying to get at.
Especially, since, again, I don't even think the costumes are really that bad. Especially not that dress one, like that change is just laughable.
The thing about this type of issue is that I don't think people realize how incredibly normalized this is in Japan. Let's just take One Piece for example which is pretty much the most popular anime/manga in Japan. Rebecca is 16 years old in the manga/anime, and her design is:
For a possibly more mainstream example, you also have Bulma in the original Dragon Ball.
One Piece has gone downhill since the timeskip in terms of women design. Everyone has the exact same fanservice proportions with as many excuses to have the women in skimpy outfits as possible regardless of how little sense it makes. It took like until the Whole Cake Arc before we got women that wasn't the exact same thin waist, wide hip, D+ minimum cup sized breast body design.
Oh, I agree and am well aware of those issues. It just feels a little weird to see "well they aged them up a year or two for the dub so the game is ok now" sometimes.
Obviously ending the messed up idol industry in real life would do a lot for ending it in games.
You have people in this thread genuinely saying they hope the game bombs because it's "censored." This honestly feels like a thread that would be in the other place. I feel like I walked into a Twilight Zone scenario.
The thing about this type of issue is that I don't think people realize how incredibly normalized this is in Japan. Let's just take One Piece for example which is pretty much the most popular anime/manga in Japan. Rebecca is 16 years old in the manga/anime, and her design is:
For a possibly more mainstream example, you also have Bulma in the original Dragon Ball.
Part of the issue with this is that One Piece here is published in Weekly Shonen Jump. "Shonen" refers to boys of ages 12 to 18, so teenage characters aren't going to be much older than their target audience. Manga for this demographic is the primary one exported, so you've got a ton of adults reading stuff meant for teenagers and being bombarded with teenage characters. It naturally becomes creepier as a result.
Which brings up another issue which is do you want young men to be raised with this image of women, but that's more general.
Anyway, the audience for idols - the subject matter that this game concerns - are primarily adults as far as I know.
Recognizing the relatively small distinction between 17 and 18 should make you reflect on the problems of both Western and Japanese society instead of make you absolve this game of skeeviness. Like I understand your point, but the logical end point of that argument is "sexually exploiting 18 year olds is bad" and not "18 is fine so 17 is also not a big deal".
You are not coming across well at all so maybe you should sleep on it if you can. You are being turbo dismissive over people's responses to the really whack shit that's being said in this thread. Including your own posts.
dude don't get me started about Dragonball master roshi shrunk down to spy on a 12 year old poop shit sucksThe thing about this type of issue is that I don't think people realize how incredibly normalized this is in Japan. Let's just take One Piece for example which is pretty much the most popular anime/manga in Japan. Rebecca is 16 years old in the manga/anime, and her design is:
For a possibly more mainstream example, you also have Bulma in the original Dragon Ball.
to be fair, it's not exclusive to Japan. But a lot of the popular anime shit is fucked up and very popular. I haven't gotten past the Nami With Reasonable Character Design era of OP yet but looks like there's a lot to look forward to.
I know my post is most likely going to get just swept over but, I'm actually happy we're getting the version from the Western Release? I loved the new like outfits the characters got instead of bikini's like you could tell time was taken to taylor those costumes to the girls personalities and it didn't seem out of place at all. The ONLY change I didn't like was the wedding dress, it felt weird to make it so super super white, but it was barely a thing and didn't really bother me. This was (and is) one of my favorite, if not favorite, game on the Wii U. I SCREAMED when I saw it was getting a switch port. I'm def gonna get it again, but like, I feel like I can't even talk at all about it on any of the threads here, not just this one but the main announcement one too because all people talk about is this "censorship." I want to talk about how i'm excited for Tiki to be in the party maybe, or at least get some more time, I'm curious what else they'll add and seeing everyone again and going through the super fun dungeons and perfecting the battle system. But I feel like I can't even sort of bring that up because everyone's just yelling about bikinis. :(
People think it's fine if they get aged up a year or two because American society teaches that to be fine. The porn industry is built off of a revolving door of 18-20 year olds being chewed up and spit out, there isn't a single person alive who watches porn who hasn't seen an 18 year old in porn. It's normalized in our society, that's why you are seeing it in the responses here. Media doesn't exist in a vacuum.
The audience for idols is teenagers and adults, just like pop-stars or boy bands or girl groups in the US. Adults consuming media meant for teens is not a phenomenon resulting from localization, it's true of teen-oriented media everywhere. Western YA has a sizeable portion of its audience being adults (primarily women). That's not inherently creepy.
I feel like the only way to get healthy conversation about the game itself is to have a thread with a mod post indicating any and all censorship debating will be strictly moderated.
I tend to find that community threads and dedicated Discords are usually better for talking about content you're excited about even if they're smaller. If there was anything specific you wanted to talk about, you could also try a thread with a warning in the OP/Title to not discuss localization changes in regards to the topic.
The inherent creepiness is where this phenomenon intersects with the sexualization of characters made for that demographic.
Like, "imagine if this sexy girl went to your school with you" isn't that great. But "imagine if this sexy girl went to your high school except you're a 35 year old man now" is worse.
That sort of creepiness certainly exists with things like YA fiction fandoms as well.
And as for idols, again, my understanding is that the audience is primarily middle-aged men. Yes, there may be younger fans, but the industry sells primarily to older ones.
Last edited:
Imagine being an adult asking for a refund because of the removal of underaged sexualization.
How low can you possibly go?
But we all know from all the ultra violence and animal violence discussions that "it's just pixels" anyway, so the removal of the "anime tiddies" pixels should be no problem at all. There are plenty of pixels left on screen to look at.
How low can you possibly go?
But we all know from all the ultra violence and animal violence discussions that "it's just pixels" anyway, so the removal of the "anime tiddies" pixels should be no problem at all. There are plenty of pixels left on screen to look at.
Let's be clear here: these changes don't stop the game from sexualizing children. The west just gets to pretend it doesn't now. If you have a problem with the game, you should still have a problem with it because of the fact it had to be censored in the first place.
Too much people to quote, but basically this.
I can somehow understand the "false advertisement" part, but while some of the changes were head-scratching, part of the adaptation here was more than welcome.
Right, the problem is with the content itself, not the sheer fact that adults are engaging with media geared towards teens. And yes, you see that with YA fiction fandoms as well (primarily in the form of fanfiction).
As for your second paragraph, that's kind of disingenuous. Adults typically engage with teen media as a form of escapism. It's the appeal of returning to that time in your life, but in the shoes of someone cooler or more interesting. That absolutely CAN be unhealthy, but that's mainly dependent on what's contained in the content itself. Someone liking a lot of teen media as an adult may suggest a bit of, idk, arrested development or a troubling or traumatic or unfulfilling childhood, but it does not make them a creepy predator.
They literally took the offending content out of the western version. It's an entirely different product.
I agree with this. The escapism can't be understated when it comes to adults engaging with YA. It's perhaps even more of a factor here than for the target audience. Or at least, it can be.
Also somewhat the same reasoning for Isekai being so currently popular in anime/manga/light novels. Lots of Japanese adults who are unsatisfied with their lives who like the fantasy of escaping to a more exciting world (often through reincarnation).
The main difference between media like this game or a lot of Shonen manga and YA lit is that a lot of the content in Japanese games or manga is problematic, whereas most YA lit is not. There are exceptions to this, say, Twilight, and you saw plenty of examples of the kind of bizarre behavior that idol fans in Japan exhibit with middle aged moms trying to grab Taylor Lautner or whatever.
Let me rephrase that: you don't need children running around in bikinis to sexualize them. Also, making a completely surface level age change to characters that were concieved and designed as teenagers is essentially changing nothing.
Especially since from what I heard, the protagonist Itsuki is the kind of character who has the kind of personality that's very obviously intended to allow (male) players to easily identify themselves as.
The irony of all this is that they are only using the Western version as the base to save money and/or resources. If you look at Xenoblade Chronicles 2, their mobile games, etc. Nintendo doesn't give a fuck about skeevy content in games they publish.
User banned (1 month): inflammatory pedantry surrounding the sexualization of minors
I think some in the thread use the word pedo in a way that downplays real pedoism. It's a nasty sexual orientation where people should search help for. Age has nothing to do with this at all. So 17=Pedo and 18=non pedo is stupid. Its sexualisation of minors thats grose enough but pedofile is on a hole other level. Please don't use this word so easy.
Technically they modified a few aspects of the game they thought would be problematic. It's more-or-less the same game.
Yeah, I think that's where I'm at. I appreciate the changes but the game still looks to be a saccharine presentation of the Japanese idol industry. That one infamous "vagina bones" image goes from a bikini top to a sports bra but it's still a pretty revealing outfit. Maybe not in comparison to an actual bikini but in general. By all accounts, the game readily pans over the girl's bodies and accompanies it in universe with the guy characters commenting approvingly. Even with the changes, I'm not sure I'm down for this kind of thing. It feels hardbaked into the premise.
They are still teenagers, they are just teenagers old enough that the West is OK sexualizing them. You are splitting hairs here; if your problem is the sexualization of teenagers then your bone to pick is with both Japanese and Western society. The characters could be 18 just fine based on the context of the game and how they look.
No, this game is significantly more skeevy than XBC2 because it's based in a real world Japan setting and features high school students being sexualized, not fantasy creatures/mystical beings. That's why they made the localization changes in the first place for the Wii U.
Well yeah that's what the idol industry is, of course it's hard-baked into the premise. That's what the music industry is like here in the US too.
I've got no real opinions on the changes but it's good they gave refunds if the customers. Let us never forget that marketing is a net evil and they need to be heavily regulated and kept on a VERY short leash. Any time the object for sale does not match the advertising the company should relinquish any ill gotten money
Ah what I mean is even though they made it less creepy, the content is still creepy.
Not sure how Fat4all likes his words being used in this context, better ask him
But on a serious note, I'm still in day 1, lets goooo
